Tag Archives: Fist

HOT based Fist/Blood healing with Damage Builder:

The HOT based Fist/Blood healing build is similar to the one above. Instead of focusing on burst healing, you focus on your HOTs.

The build is:

Actives:

Bloodline

Pack Leader

The Scarlet Arts (Blood Consumer)

Vigour or Empathy

Creature Comfort (Claw Consumer)

Cauterise

Radiance (Elite Consumer)

Passive:

Mad Skills (By using bloodline as your builder, it allows you to use passives that activate only by damage abilities. This means spells such as “Mad Skills” will proc)

Subtlety

Hot Iron

Empowerment

Making Amends

Brawler

Culmination

In general, this build is the counterpart of the Burst Healing Build. However, instead of healing with burst healing, you are healing with use of HOTs. There are a number of folks out there who really like the effects of Creature Comfort and Radiance combined, which require a different load-out of passives. By removing the direct healing from this build, you free up a few passive slots. These can be replaced as you wish, however I just included Sublety into the build.

Burst Based Fist/Blood healing with Damage Builder:

The benefits of this build is that by building with a blood dps ability, it allows you to use two ability consumers, instead of just one.There is some discussion of the viability of a damage based builder, however keeping it as an option is always good.

Actives:

Bloodline

Pack Leader

The Scarlet Arts or Exquisite Corpse (Blood Consumer)

Vigour or Empathy

Surgical Steel (Claw Consumer)

Cauterise

Fired Up (Elite Consumer)

Passive:

Mad Skills (By using bloodline as your builder, it allows you to use passives that activate only by damage abilities. This means spells such as “Mad Skills” will proc)

Healing Sparks

Hot Iron

Empowerment

Shadow Medic

Brawler

Culmination

Optional changes: Including Alpha Wolf, Subtlety (if needed), Trade Bloodline for Open Vein and use Chain Misery on fights with Healing or Barriers, Ready for more if a dispel is needed.

This is the basic upgrade from my elite healing build found HERE. It swaps out a few abilities that I have since found to be upgrades or improvements from my elite healing build.

As stated before, the inclusion of a dps based builder allows you to build two resources at once. Additionally, you can use Mad Skills & Culmination by using this builder, allowing some passive healing as well as an increase in Crit rate.

Finally, I have included either The Scarlet Arts or Exquisite Corpse as your blood consumer. As long as Exquisite corpse is bugged, it is clearly the better ability. However, since we will not to focus our builds around bugged abilities and exploits, I would suggest using The Scarlet Arts. It will not make you reliant on use of a bugged ability/expolit.

The Whistling Fist

Fist/Chaos Survival

A Blue Mountain Special, by Ryahl

This is the second part of a fist/chaos build that was assembled based on a discussion with a board reader. The “My First 60″ version of the build has been a reasonably successful build and its time now for it to grow up into a 400 point Blue Mountain build. With the Whistling Fist, you develop fairly significant damage and turn escalation into even more of a multi-effect ability.

**UPDATE** I have played around with this build on test. Wearing green QL10 gear and using this build, ghouls and vampires in Besieged Farmlands were quite simple. Impair immune targets were harder, but very survivable. Additionally, as soon as you have the points, dump Gunsmoke for From the Abyss. Your DPS meter will thank you!**

Key Features

This build takes advantage of the fact that Escalate currently brings a ton of utility in a two skill package. The core attributes of Escalate include a frenzy PBAOE damage that quickly stacks up the exposed weakened state. 10-stacks of exposed will increase your damage by 30%. Further, the Intensity passive means subsequent applications of escalation give you the minor ward ability, extending your soloing ability just a bit. Paradigm Shift assures that each of your escalate hits increase your hit rate, reducing your likelihood of glancing or missing. Finally, Gunsmoke piles on a bit of damage each time you escalate.

The build goes VERY deep into assault rifle to pick up a single skill, Shoot ‘em Up. SeU turns your escalate into an affliction starter in addition to its already stacked up pool of benefits. Since escalates are now adding afflictions, Tear ‘em Up will give you a 10% damage boost on usage. Also, Salt in the Wounds is piling on damage every time you apply an affliction, helping scale your escalation damage upwards.

Your chaos finisher is Four Horseman, a burst ability (Call for Eris works well here too). FH as a burst triggers Healing Sparks, keeping a heal over time running for most of your damage rotation. You will also use Surgical Steel periodically as a self-heal, which will also trigger Healing Sparks. Surgical Steel starts stacks on Hot Iron, adding to your heal throughput and additionally adds a heal component to Tear ‘em Up.

The build features three utility abilities, you have Helter Skelter, a dash with a built in impair. This lets you start every fight against an impaired opponent. When that impair runs out, you can use Domino Effect to lock down targets again with another impair. Finally, you have Armor Fati as a buff to make sure you land hits (removes glancing and evasion for 10 seconds).

Rotation

This is a stun lock build. Open with Helter Skelter to shut down your targets. Even though you have fist resources on charge in, your fist consumer needs afflicted state, so follow up your charge with Escalation to set the correct state. Then, use Tear ‘em Up followed by a weak Four Horseman (only one chaos resource built, but the 10% damage boost is better on FH than on escalate). Your first impair is likely over, so a quick Domino Effect can lock the targets down again if you wish.

Your standard rotation is Escalation x5, Tear ‘em Up, Four Horsemen. Rotate in Surgical Steel early in place of Tear ‘Em Up.

Armor Fati can be used one of two ways. On harder fights, throw it at/before your initial charge. This makes sure everything hits and helps you get paradigm shift stacking. On easier fights, toss it at a point where you just want to finish off a target.

Alternatives

You may find that life is too risky with just a fist consumer to heal. If so, swap out surgical steel for cauterize and you have a spam heal.

Build Instructions

This build goes very deep into AR with very little to show for it. Do NOT spend into the AR tree until you have most of this build assembled.

However, you don’t need Salt in the Wounds until you get Shoot ‘em Up. Additionally, you might as well use Wild at Heart as your fist closer until you get Shoot em Up. The nice things in TeU require affliction and this build needs SeU to set that.

Gear Needs

Paradigm shift helps you with your +hit budget, but you will probably find you need some additional +hit as you level up. Armor Fati doesn’t have enough uptime to ignore +hit.

Your damage bursts are probably best coming from critical rating and critical power. Since you have passive and self-heals in this build, penetrate has a bit less utility. You can’t penetrate heal, but you can crit heal. I would recommend either a 1:1 or a 2:1 crit rating to crit power investment.

You need all three types of talisman in this build. You need some high hitpoint gear, some attack power gear and a bit of healing gear. I would probably use a tanking headpiece (20% HP), three majors and a minor attack power (60% damage) and two minor +heal pieces (20% healing). Use the attack power minor (10%) as your “fiddle with” piece. If you need more HP, swap it to tanking, more healing swap it to +heal.

End Game Fist Healing

While there are multiple viable healing builds at end-game, it is the general belief that the in most situations, fist offers the most powerful healing options for Elite and NM level healing.

Over the last few weeks, I have been testing out a number of different builds, including fist with both Blood and Pistol. What follows is a general guide of what I have found that seems to work well.

(this is a work in progess that I will update as I complete additional portions)

Burst Based Fist/Blood healing with Damage Builder:

The benefits of this build is that by building with a blood dps ability, it allows you to use two ability consumers, instead of just one.There is some discussion of the viability of a damage based builder, however keeping it as an option is always good.

Actives:

Bloodline

Pack Leader

The Scarlet Arts or Exquisite Corpse (Blood Consumer)

Vigour or Empathy

Surgical Steel (Claw Consumer)

Cauterise

Fired Up (Elite Consumer)

Passive:

Mad Skills (By using bloodline as your builder, it allows you to use passives that activate only by damage abilities. This means spells such as “Mad Skills” will proc)

Healing Sparks

Hot Iron

Empowerment

Shadow Medic

Brawler

Culmination

Optional changes: Including Alpha Wolf, Subtlety (if needed), Trade Bloodline for Open Vein and use Chain Misery on fights with Healing or Barriers, Ready for more if a dispel is needed.

This is the basic upgrade from my elite healing build found HERE. It swaps out a few abilities that I have since found to be upgrades or improvements from my elite healing build.

As stated before, the inclusion of a dps based builder allows you to build two resources at once. Additionally, you can use Mad Skills & Culmination by using this builder, allowing some passive healing as well as an increase in Crit rate.

Finally, I have included either The Scarlet Arts or Exquisite Corpse as your blood consumer. As long as Exquisite corpse is bugged, it is clearly the better ability. However, since we will not to focus our builds around bugged abilities and exploits, I would suggest using The Scarlet Arts. It will not make you reliant on use of a bugged ability/expolit.

HOT based Fist/Blood healing with Damage Builder:

The HOT based Fist/Blood healing build is similar to the one above. Instead of focusing on burst healing, you focus on your HOTs.

The build is:

Actives:

Bloodline

Pack Leader

The Scarlet Arts (Blood Consumer)

Vigour or Empathy

Creature Comfort (Claw Consumer)

Cauterise

Radiance (Elite Consumer)

Passive:

Mad Skills (By using bloodline as your builder, it allows you to use passives that activate only by damage abilities. This means spells such as “Mad Skills” will proc)

Subtlety

Hot Iron

Empowerment

Making Amends

Brawler

Culmination

In general, this build is the counterpart of the one listed above. However, instead of healing with burst healing, you are healing with use of dots. There are a number of folks out there who really like the effects of Creature Comfort and Radiance combined, which require a different load-out of passives. By removing the direct healing from this build, you free up a few passive slots. These can be replaced as you wish, however I just included Sublety into the build.

Fist Chaos

A My First 60 Survival Build

Build Notes: Our “My First 60″ builds are targeted for about 60 total points. They represent the initial builds for a player starting the game, but wanting to play a focused role. Thus, inner wheel builds are incomplete builds and NOT intended for mid-game or later play.

We occasionally create builds based on reader request. In this case, the reader was looking for a survival oriented build with a chaos base. The build has not been tested. However, it works from a base similar to our other MF60 survival builds, so it should perform well.

Active Abilities

Passive Abilities

Lick Your Wounds (Fist)

Nurturing Gift (Fist)

Intensity (Chance)

Paradigm Shift (Theory)

Gunsmoke (Shotgun – Control)

Chaos Adept (Theory)

Predator (Feral)

Key Features

This build requires just under 60 total AP to put together. The build uses one builder, Escalation. This is a lower damage builder than some of the other fist/chaos options, but it is does damage to multiple targets. Further, combined with the Intensity passive, escalation is building up the exposed weakened effect, increasing your damage output by as much as 30%. The weakened effect is triggering processes for the Paradigm Shift and Gunsmoke passives, causing your subsequent attacks to hit more often, for more damage respectively.

While escalation is an AOE, this build has been assembled as a single target build. Your chaos finisher, Call for Eris does substantial single target damage as does your fist finisher, Wild at Heart.

This build features two utility abilities. Illusion is there for those situations where a bit more defense would be helpful. Go for the throat is your elite ability, a single target 5-second stun. Right after using Go for the throat, follow up with Paradox, which exploits impair for additional damage.

As with any survival build, this build has a few healing sources built in. Nurture exists to provide some on-demand healing and can help keep a constant heal over time running if rotated frequently. Nurturing Gift increases both the heal and heal duration of of Nurture. Lick Your Wounds keeps a constant heal effect running as your damage output stacks up.

Rotation

This is a very straight forwards build. Consider opening with Go for the Throat and Paradox for a nice 1-2 punch. Follow that up with Wild at Heart (fist resources should recharge out of combat) and you will have put some serious hurt out right at the start of the fight.

Your standard combat rotation is Escalation x5, Call for Eris, Wild at Heart. Rotate in Nurture roughly every full rotation to keep the hot effect running. Use Illusion early in fights against duo’s, giving you a bit more defense until you take out the first target.

Illusion, Go for the Throat and Paradox should be used on recycle. Later on, if you face targets with significant special attacks, save GffT to interrupt those abilities. Always use Paradox immediately after GffT.

Build Consideration

Our general rule of thumb for MF60 builds is:

Get a finisher equipped for each weapon asap (go deep in Primal)

Pickup any cheap passives that synergize with your builders (Gunsmoke and Paradigm Shift)

Go deep in the cell that provides the most remaining used abilities (not really relevant for this build)

Grab remaining abilities based on cheapest to equip

Gear Consideration

Talisman are very important parts of making any build work. Survival builds require talisman from all three factors (high hit point pieces, high damage pieces, and high healing pieces). I would aim for 50% high attack power pieces (all three major’s get you here), 30% high hit point pieces (all three minor’s get you here) and 20% high heal pieces (head piece alone gets you here).

You will probably have enough +hit from the stacking paradigm shift. Look for gear that adds either critical rating and critical power, or gear that adds penetrate. However with most early game gear, focusing on the primary stats (atk, hp, heal) is more important than the glyph secondary stats.

Elite/Nightmare Healer Build Fist/AR

I started off in TSW playing a Fist/Blood Healer using the AoE Shield system, plus Fist direct & HoT’s to keep my group alive. After hitting Elites I started to find myself using Shields less and less. It seems to generate too much aggro for the actual healing it provides. Most of the time in instances the group is spread out so I find myself reverting to the Fist Heals almost all the time and the only time I found it perhaps a Necessity was in Hell Eternal vs Inurers, however I discovered Shelter can out heal the AE DoT easily.

I tried using the AR direct heals requiring DPS on the opponent. TBH i found the controls clumsy and another thing to think about, when as a healer my eyes are drawn to awkward parts of the screen, watching health, timing heals, whilst avoiding all the AoEs, I found adding damage to it counter productive and taking me more time to deliver effective healing. Further to that, I find the benefits the passives this build gives to HoT crits more effective.

Been Hitting Nightmares last few days. I currently have all the best Elite Gear and am working on signets to improve my kit but its still not enough lol. I can overcome the bosses dps with hps, obviously the more effective your heal rating the better the heals. It goes without saying problems arise when the group gets AoE’d or the tank takes mass damage but this can be overcome with the insta AE Heals and 90% of the time my groups survive it.

Primary stats for this build are Heal and Crit Rating. There is a powerful Healer Helmet that can be picked up from the last boss in Hell Fallen which gives a massive +495 Heal and as massive crit bonus every time you crit, every 20 seconds. This boosts my Crit rating up to around 98% which works well with this build. The key point to the success of this build is Glimmer of Hope and Empowerment. Ive tested this and they crit on average every couple of seconds. adding an extra 50%+ to the power of the skills that create the HoT. I swear by them.

Tactic. Upon start of a fight in Nightmare, or a tough Elite. Allow Tank to get Aggro, Spam Cauterise. When health drops to 80%, use Creature Comfort to bring back up and continue cauterising. I always keep my Feral points charged so I can drop Comfort whenever needed, I treat it like an insta heal. If Tank HP gets to 50%, throw down Comfort and Empathy, If Health gets really bad, I use both my insta AE heals, Comfort & Empathy. This can heal around 8000hp taking around 2 seconds to activate them all. Likewise. If the rest of the group is taking damage. You can activate your AE heal, especcially for those “Oh shit!” moments, and heal other members of the group to full easily. If theres an AE DoT Gather everyone together and use Shelter, the heal + HoT Crits will easily outheal 99% of DoT’s. Lastly use Confusion if mass adds arrive and you need to lose aggro.

HoT Iron is my only maybe skill for this build, as I havent found anything better. You could swap out for the +10% for HoT’s. But I dont really go on the power off HoT’s, merely stacking as many as I can as Empowerment/Glimmer of hope provides the same Heal benefit no matter the power of my HoT’s.

Key points to note in a group, if your the Healer and the Tank dies. Its your fault. If the Healer dies, its the Tanks fault. If DPSers die its their own fault as they arent avoiding AoE’s. That said, I can keep my DPSers alive with this build, provided they dont hit 2k+ damage. If you find a DPSer keeps dieing, get him to up his HP to 3k and that ussually holds it. An alive DPSer with good damage is more use then a dead one with amazing damage. If your finding you cant outheal the DPS of boss. Take a look at the spells hes casting, if he isnt casting, you need better gear.

Like anything in this game, the build requires good healing kit. But ive found this foolproof in elites, and able to beat dps in Nightmares. This is a really cheap and effective build to get. Like I say, I pretty much have every healing build in the game, and this is my preference. Hope it helps.

EDIT: I replace surgical with Creature Comfort as it provided better healing numbers to the Tank during Nightmares. If you find at lower levels it difficult to heal with this just swap it back. As a result ive also swaped out Healing Sparks for Making Amends.

Blue Mountain Special – 400 pt Survival Build

405pt AR/Fist Survival Build

It comes in at just a bit over 400 points invested (405 using TheSecretSandbox). This build should be very achievable in Blue Mountains and should really put a dent into… well, pretty much any single pull (ie single target or 1 swarmer group) while leaving you with enough HP to move onto the next pull.Another good thing with this build is that if you are planning on being a healer, you have already invested in 2 out of the 3 healing weapons.

This is the build I personally use (with one minor change, noted at the end) and I have not had any major issues with anything in BM, or the next zone.

This build is mostly about Single Target damage through Burst attacks, while having some AoE for the swarmer packs you often encounter while soloing.Saftey off, with Extra bullet, gives a nice high damage single target builder, with Three Round Burst to pack the damage on as the consumer. This damage in increased further from Eagle Eye, Short Controlled Bursts,Improved Bursts and Ferocity. They even proc Healing Sparks and Lick your Wounds to keep 2 hots rolling.Surgical Strike is thrown in at the end of every sequence to keep your HP up. Also being a burst skill, It is improved by Improved Bursts while proccing Healing Sparks. Revert to One-Two if not required.Supressing fire and Fire at Will are your go to for AoE, and are cycled with Shot of anima to use up the AR resources generated on every target, like the AR ‘My First 60′ builds. Focus on AoE when there are at least 3 or more targets. The single target skills are better when there are only 2 targets.

Rotation

Single target rotation: Safety Off x5 - Surgical Strike - Three Round Burst (replace TRB with Shot of Anima if you need the extra healing)Multi Target (3+): Safety Off (for the HoT) - Supressing Fire x4 - Fire at Will - Tab to new target - Supressing fire - Shot of Anima - Tab to new target - Fire at Will - Surgical Strike - Shot of Anima - Tab to new target -Fire at Will.

Gear Concerns

As no states are required for this build, and it is not relying on pens/crits, there are no major gear concerns. Look at 80/20 or 70/30 (approx) DPS/Heal gear

Build PriorityFrom scratch, grab Lick your Wounds then fill the inner ring for AR (Saftey Off, Extra Bullet, Fire at Will, Eagle Eye).Next, grab Three Round Burst, Supressing Fire and Shot of Anima. Move into fists after to get Surgical Steel and Healing Sparks.Once you grab One-Two, the remaining passives you can get in any order.From Blade/Fist ‘My first 60′ it would be fairly similar. Keep nurture untill Surgical Steel, keep Wild at Heart untill One-Two.From AR/Blade ‘My first 60′ you are already close to maxing the AR inner ring, so it is a quick trip to Three Round Burst, Supressing Fire and Shot of Anima. Follow as above.For SP, work on keeping Fist Healing, AR Damage and All talismans even.Optional changesI personally have removed One-Two and added Red Mist. Helps put a nice dent into mobs at the start of a fight at range, meaning i can usually get red mist, plus a full builder/AR finisher off before melee targets get to me. Does increase build cost by 50apIf you want to reduce the DPS but add a bunch of healing, swap Saftey Off for Anima Burst, and Extra Bullet for Hot Iron. Zero cost to change. Does mean you cant use surgical steel more then once per fight though.

Everything Must Die

Claw and Blade AOE Survival

A Blue Mountain Special, by Ryahl

Everything Must Die is an upgrade to our popular My First 60 Blade/Claw build. There are a few noteworthy changes here. Primarily, the damage component for this build shifts to penetration with the afflictions merely setting up the kill count. This build is a highly reliable soloing build. I still use this as my go-to build for outdoor game play in Romania. While the build excels in aoe fights, it still performs well in single target fights thanks to the guarantees penetrates.

It comes in at just a bit over 400 points invested (408 using TheSecretSandbox) and would be a bit higher coming from the My First 60 build since we used some Blood Passives in that one. None the less, this build should be very achievable in Blue Mountains and should really put a dent into packs of… well, pretty much anything.

Everything Must Die has worked very well in solo instances. In fact, it’s the build I used to handle the vampires, flesh golems and Mara in the Mortal Sins story line. There will be links in that write-up to this build.

Import Build:

If you are using Viper’s Deck Manager, you can import this build by coping and pasting the above code into his import section.

Active Abilities

Blade Torrent

Clearing the Path

Hog Wild (Tear em up)

Inner Spark

Surging Blades

Stunning Swirl

Steel Echo

Passive Abilities

Perfect Storm

Twist the Knife

Sudden Return

Fortunate Strike

Renewal

Fatal Flourish

Immortal Spirit

All of the damage in this build comes from three abilities and a host of passives. You begin using Blade Torrent, the same low dps builder from the My First 60. As there, the Perfect Storm passive causes Blade Torrent to add an afflicted state to all of its targets. That’s where the fun begins. Further attacks on afflicted targets will trigger Fortunate Strike for occasional extra damage. More importantly, though, Fatal Flourish begins stacking up penetration buffs because of your application of affliction. This helps to setup future Blade Torrent penetrates.

Your blade finisher is Clearing the Path and here is where the damage gets ugly. Clearing the Path has a guaranteed penetration on afflicted mobs (which your builder just did). Welcome to AOE penetrates. Now, with those penetrations processing, you will begin seeing Twist the Knife increasing your damage output. Sudden Return also adds some damage to the penetrated hit.

For a low cost version of the build, Hog Wild serves as your fist damage finisher. However, once you have the points, Tear ‘em Up becomes your go-to fist finisher damage finisher since it adds a damage output buff to your next attacks (penetration * damage buff = yes please!).

Your penetration also plays a role with your healing, since Immortal Spirit processes a heal over time on penetration. However, most of your healing comes from Inner Spark and Cauterise. Inner Spark places a reactive heal on your defensive target (you when soloing), causing every hit on them to heal them. Cauterize becomes your go to heal when it is needed.

The build features three utility abilities. Surging Blades is a nice dash attack (returning from the My First 60), it has a fairly fast recyle which can be handy. Surging Blades is more than just a combat starter, you can use it to get away from a pack to give yourself enough lead room to start cauterising on the run!

Stunning Swirl returns as your AOE impairment ability. This time, though, impairment plays a nice heal benefit since Renewal will place a heal process on any of your impaired targets. Hitting those targets will trigger heals (that AOE builder and finisher come in handy here).

Finally, Steel Echo is in for those moments where you just want extra special damage. Throwing Steel Echo adds damage to every hit and has the extra benefit of creating a second hit counter on each of your hits – causing even more processing for your passives.

Variant to the Build

Recently, I have made a few small changes to this build. Renewal has been replaced with Perseverance for more heal uptime. Additionally, Fatal Flourish has been dropped in favor for Flight of Daggers.

Additionally, I have begun looking for a replacement to Steel Echo. While it is a decent ability, the recycle is a bit too long for my play style. Depending on the situation, I will cycle in a second 45-second recycle impair, allowing me to double lockdown in a fight. In other situations, you might consider a second dash over the second impair.

Rotation

Open combat with a Surging Blades, Blade Storm, Clearing the Path and Inner Spark. This uses up your free resources (you used a builder to set affliction-only).

From there, the build cycles between two rotations, the damage rotation of Blade Storm x5, Clearing the Path and the fist DPS finisher. This is followed by the Blade Stormx5,Clearing the Path and Inner Spark rotation.

Use Stunning Swirl to put everything on the ground every now and then (and help get your heal processes moving). Ideally, precede your impairment with a Steel Echo once and watch your next regular rotation mop up the map.

Gear Concerns

This build will generate its own penetration, so you don’t need PEN on your weapons. However, the build is deeply vulnerable to GLANCING. Glancing will cause your passives to fail, which will cause you to die. Make sure you have enough HIT and SKILL with your weapons to nullify your glance rate. Once you have addressed your HIT, focus on getting up some ATTACK POWER to take advantage of all those sweet, sweet penetrations.

You should also consider a couple of minor talisman in healing to help out your heal actives and passives.

Note – when I ran Mortal Sins, I used a tanking set (6 tanking talisman with a head DPS talisman). That’s not by design, it’s just my tanking gear and the best I had available. However, the build still works well enough with that structure. It just becomes better optimized with a talisman blend.

Build Priority

Assuming you are transitioning from the My First 60 build, your first priority should be picking up Clearing the Path.

Once you have that, begin subbing in the penetration passives in this build over the affliction passives in the MF60.

Once that’s done, work on acquiring the heal skills from fist. Until you have them the Fist consumer and heal in the MF60 will more than suffice.

Your last priority should be Steel Echo. It’s a nice add to the build, but you will be seeing all sorts of fun things happen well before applying it.